Halloween Ends: Hopefully The End of an Era

Last year Blumhouse released the highly anticipated sequel to the 2018 reboot/sequel of Halloween. To put it nicely, the response to Halloween Kills was mixed as the movie made a few strange choices, including reintegrating pieces of Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
such as the fact that Michael Myers is not just a person but some paranormal entity of pure evil. The ending of Halloween Kills was perplexing, setting up the least interesting iteration of a confrontation between said paranormal entity of pure evil that is Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the final entry. That said, the culmination of that setup manages to fall short in every conceivable way.

To clear up something before going to deeply into the issues of this movie, Halloween Ends is inexorably tied to Halloween Kills. The two movies were developed and shot as a package set so the narrative between the two is closer to that of a four hour long movie or a miniseries than that of a movie and its sequel. The other thing worth noting is that Halloween Ends is only canon to the original Halloween and the 2018 reboot of the same name. The events of Halloween II, the 2000s reboot, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, H20 and Resurrection, or any of the movies from Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers to Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers do not matter to the events of this movie.

The first issue is that the last movie did not set up the second half of the events well enough. This is made even more clear during the cold open that introduces newcomer Corey (Rohan Campbell) and tries to convince the viewer that he is a victim of the people of Haddonfield. Obviously this is trying to carry over the most ridiculous plot thread from Halloween Kills
where Haddonfield has this mob mentality that caused Michael Myers to become the killer he is because that same thing is what pushes Corey to be a killer. The other issue is that Corey did actually kill the kid in the cold open and the viewer sees this. The viewer knows it was an accident but, understandably, the town and the kid’s parents do not believe him.

The second issue is that Michael Myers does not have an active role in the movie, despite this being billed as a final confrontation between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. It takes about an hour to get to his actual first appearance and, by the time this matchup has happened, it is so far into the movie that the viewer has lost interest. On top of that, when the confrontation happens, the final resolution is carried out partially by angry mob of citizens of Haddonfield which contradicts the message of the movie that Haddonfield’s angry mobs cause the villainous behavior to manifest itself.

Peacock does have a Halloween portal for those who want to watch something scary during the month of October that includes movies like Halloween 2, Saw, Psycho, and a good amount of Universal monster movies. Halloween Ends is also included in this portal, however there are few options that are a worse way to spend one’s time than watching Halloween Ends. That said, if one has literally no other options, Halloween Ends is in theaters and on Peacock.

Final Rating: 4/10